As an actor, Ben Kingsley embodies different people on a regular basis. His latest role, however, finds the Oscar-winning actor as someone he's never played before: Ryan Reynolds in the first trailer for Self/Less.
The trailer, via Focus Features, sees Kingsley as a tremendously wealthy New Yorker who soon finds his remaining days are short when he contracts cancer. Under the care of a radical new medical procedure, operated by Matthew Goode, the billionaire finds he can transfer himself into the body of a young, physically fit man (Reynolds). While everything seems fine at first, of course things go sour as this new-found operation sees some unusual side effects.
Director Tarsem, the filmmaker behind varied films as The Fall to Mirror Mirror, incorporates his signature sense of style throughout this trailer, although his love for gorgeous art direction and textured backdrops seemed muted here to tell the story at hand. There's definitely a lot of quick edits and bright lights found, however, which may somewhat make up for some of the less-than-original storytelling here.
Written by David & Alex Pastor (Carriers), Self/Less has an interesting premise, to be sure. The execution here, however, draws too many similarities to like-minded past projects like Face/Off, Limitless and even the Reynolds-starring The Change-Up, just to name a few, to capture its own identity. Perhaps this will be different when the film at hand is released. Although the trailer seems to give away quite a bit of plot details for those worried about potential spoilers.
Regardless, Reynolds deserves a new starring vehicle that succeeds, and hopefully this may give him some good fortune before he becomes Deadpool on February 12, 2016.
Also, for the record, no one seems sure if the title is Self/Less, Selfless or Self/less. That may be a problem the marketing team should figure out.
Check out the trailer below:
Image courtesy of Famous/ACE/INFphoto.com